My Experiences With HomeBuilt Computer

SamuelF566 · Sep 16, 2005

A few Months ago I ordered All the parts I would need to start building
my system. I spent around $1000 but wanted a gaming system which adds a
few hundered dollars more than if it wasn't.
Everything Works Fine and Got the satisfaction of Knowing All the
Software and hardware that are inside. It wasn't that difficult and
only had 1 or two problems which were simply jumpers on the
motherboard. The Parts I have installed are the following:
1. Biostar Motherboard with 2.4 ghtz CPU Installed (Made sure I did
not install this myself as its the most expensive part) $200.00
2. Evga 6800 Video Card $150.00
3. 1 gig PC2100 DDR RAM $200.00
4. 450 Watt PSU $40.00
5. CASE - $60.00
6. 1 CD-ROM DRIVE AND 1 CD-RW $50.00
7. 1 100 GIG HD $100.00
8. WINDOWS XP $150.00
9. MODEM AND SOUNDCARD $50.00

Building your own won't save you money and might be frustrating but
you will learn alot.

dawg · Sep 16, 2005

PC 2100 ram?You do know yor ram is rated for 133 FSB? What cpu are you
using?Besides just 2.4?

jaster · Sep 17, 2005

A few Months ago I ordered All the parts I would need to start building my
system. I spent around $1000 but wanted a gaming system which adds a few
hundered dollars more than if it wasn't.
Everything Works Fine and Got the satisfaction of Knowing All the
Software and hardware that are inside. It wasn't that difficult and only
had 1 or two problems which were simply jumpers on the motherboard. The
Parts I have installed are the following:
1. Biostar Motherboard with 2.4 ghtz CPU Installed (Made sure I did
not install this myself as its the most expensive part) $200.00

I know you're just starting out and maybe a few months ago prices were
different .... but an AMD64 system might have been cheaper.

2. Evga 6800 Video Card $150.00
3. 1 gig PC2100 DDR RAM $200.00
4. 450 Watt PSU $40.00
5. CASE - $60.00
6. 1 CD-ROM DRIVE AND 1 CD-RW $50.00

You could get a DVD+/_RW for $50.00. A second CD-ROM
not that important.

7. 1 100 GIG HD $100.00

For $100 you could have had a 160-250 Gb. If you have a lot of games or
lots of scenery for FS2004 you could use the extra space.

8. WINDOWS XP $150.00
9. MODEM AND SOUNDCARD $50.00

Building your own won't save you money and might be frustrating but
you will learn alot.

Good price on the 6800 though. And not bad for a gaming machine

Ruel Smith · Sep 17, 2005

A few Months ago I ordered All the parts I would need to start building

my system. I spent around $1000 but wanted a gaming system which adds a
few hundered dollars more than if it wasn't.
Everything Works Fine and Got the satisfaction of Knowing All the
Software and hardware that are inside. It wasn't that difficult and
only had 1 or two problems which were simply jumpers on the
motherboard. The Parts I have installed are the following:
1. Biostar Motherboard with 2.4 ghtz CPU Installed (Made sure I did
not install this myself as its the most expensive part) $200.00
2. Evga 6800 Video Card $150.00
3. 1 gig PC2100 DDR RAM $200.00
4. 450 Watt PSU $40.00
5. CASE - $60.00
6. 1 CD-ROM DRIVE AND 1 CD-RW $50.00
7. 1 100 GIG HD $100.00
8. WINDOWS XP $150.00
9. MODEM AND SOUNDCARD $50.00

Building your own won't save you money and might be frustrating but
you will learn alot.

Where did you do your shopping??? Do you not see that this system I laid out
for you rocks any system you can buy retail off the shelf anywhere, by
anyone (including the one you built)? You get QUALITY components throughout,
room to grow, and the satisfaction that you built it yourself. I know the
graphics card seems to be a step backward compared to your system, but I
could not find a 6800 with only 128MB like you have for PCI express. The
only 6800 cards for that slot have 256MB of memory and are about $75, which
would have only put you slightly over your $1000 budget, anyway.

I think you simply didn't do your due diligence in shopping for your parts.
The reason you didn't save any money is because you paid too much for what
you got. You didn't build much of a gaming system, either, being the
processor must be an older model because you specified you're using PC2100
memory, which is very slow these days (and you paid $200 for it???).

The only time your statement has truth is when you're buying/building a very
small budget system, like around $400 - 600. You can find Compaq and
eMachines systems that are a lot of system for that money and you simply
couldn't do it without major headaches of purchasing crippled budget parts
that might not work as expected.

djs0302 · Sep 17, 2005

A few Months ago I ordered All the parts I would need to start building
my system. I spent around $1000 but wanted a gaming system which adds a
few hundered dollars more than if it wasn't.
Everything Works Fine and Got the satisfaction of Knowing All the
Software and hardware that are inside. It wasn't that difficult and
only had 1 or two problems which were simply jumpers on the
motherboard. The Parts I have installed are the following:
1. Biostar Motherboard with 2.4 ghtz CPU Installed (Made sure I did
not install this myself as its the most expensive part) $200.00
2. Evga 6800 Video Card $150.00
3. 1 gig PC2100 DDR RAM $200.00
4. 450 Watt PSU $40.00
5. CASE - $60.00
6. 1 CD-ROM DRIVE AND 1 CD-RW $50.00
7. 1 100 GIG HD $100.00
8. WINDOWS XP $150.00
9. MODEM AND SOUNDCARD $50.00

Building your own won't save you money and might be frustrating but
you will learn alot.

Congratulations. Building your own pc can be very rewarding. Ignore
the critics.

JAD · Sep 17, 2005

"> For $1000 you could have built this, instead:for five bucks I could have clubbed him over the head instead

JAD · Sep 17, 2005

jeesh, ya come in and brag a little, take a little pride in what you've
done and what do you get for it?

AMD salesmen telling you IN THEIR OPINION a better way of going...........

the only thing that seems out of wack is your memory speed,,,typo?
and the 150 for XP (home?) should have been 80 or abouts

jaster · Sep 17, 2005

jeesh, ya come in and brag a little, take a little pride in what you've
done and what do you get for it?

AMD salesmen telling you IN THEIR OPINION a better way of going...........

Come JAD we're happy he built a system but it's not the AMD that's at
issue. No matter how many months ago he put that system together but
you know that if he had asked here before hand he could have built a
better system Intel or AMD based. Criticism is for the next upgrade.

djs0302 · Sep 17, 2005

JAD said:
the only thing that seems out of wack is your memory speed,,,typo?
and the 150 for XP (home?) should have been 80 or abouts

He may have had to buy the full version of XP rather than the upgrade
version. The full version generally costs twice as much as the upgrade
version.

Ruel Smith · Sep 18, 2005

jeesh, ya come in and brag a little, take a little pride in what you've

done and what do you get for it?

AMD salesmen telling you IN THEIR OPINION a better way of going...........

the only thing that seems out of wack is your memory speed,,,typo?
and the 150 for XP (home?) should have been 80 or abouts

No AMD salesman here at all, as I have both Intel and AMD machines, but
honestly, if 2.4GHz is not an AMD (which would actually be a fast
processor), that's an awfully pricey machine for such old technology. This
person wanted to build a gaming machine for a grand, but instead built
something antique for that kind of money.

Kudos for the effort of building for the first time, but some effort in
research as to what to build/buy and where to get the parts was warranted.
When I built my very first machine, I probably spent 3 months just getting
aquainted with what was involved, how to get the latest/greatest/fastest
parts the cheapest, and what to look for/look out for. This person obviously
didn't, given that a 2.4 GHz P4 came out about 4 years ago.

I simply pointed out that his complaint that he didn't actually save any
money was bogus because he poorly spent, and for the same amount of
greenbacks, could have built an awesome machine that you couldn't touch for
the money buying a Dell or HP or something.

digisol · Sep 18, 2005

I build systems for friends and whoever is in the loop, there is no
great secrets that are not available on this or a hundred other
forums for the good info.

A 450w PSU is great but what brand is what counts there.

A 6800 will do the job, but like all brand brand brand is what
counts.

100g is not what is the defining factor but the brand, warranty, speed
and type (IDE / EIDE / SATA) etc is.

Cases are not more than a pretty box you like the look of, any system
built out of the box works just as good.

Soundcards, while many will argue a good board with 6 channel sound
will do the job, your speakers are what need to be top stuff, but
consider a Creative 2ZS as a base card worth the cash if more buttons
are the go.

Sorry but Biostar motherboards are bottom end gear and should be
avoided, for another $20 - $50 you get much much more in quality,
warranty etc.

Ram ? buy good stuff.

CDROM's and burners buy a unit that does it all and save a bit.

CPU's who knows there are many to choose from, a 3200 Barton will do
all one needs to, although a 64 bit CPU is now the base line, how big
depends on your budget, but an entire system in 64 bit can be made for
$1500 AUD NP.

Your HSF can be an important item, after all it keeps the brain alive,
get a good one.

Modems ? go with ADSL it's heaps faster and usually cheaper, dial up
is obselete unless you live where it's not available.

Have fun.

Gilbert · Sep 19, 2005

If you had the extra $$$ then what monitor would you get, assuming a large
(19 inch) lcd . . . ?

-g

jaster · Sep 19, 2005

If you had the extra $$$ then what monitor would you get, assuming a large
(19 inch) lcd . . . ?

-g

I think there is a new 19" BenQ lcd with an 8ms response
time. There's other lcds with a good response/latency time but don't
remember who makes them.

http://www.benq.us/Products/LCD/index.cfm?product=487&page=features

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/display/20050606/index.html

Otherwise, any quality non-lcd 19" flat screen, 1280x1024
monitor should be good enough for gaming. It would be a shame
to connect a top of the line graphics adapter to low end lcd for gaming.

Gilbert · Sep 19, 2005

Western Digital 250GB SATA 3.0GB/s HDD $118

With one big 250 gig HD, what would your backup strategy be? HD to DVD or ?

-g

mmdir2005 · Sep 19, 2005

You spent tons of money on computer stuff...

Let see my homebuilt stuff....
1.6Ghz AMD CPU and Motherboard: $65 at Fry
40Gig Hard drive: Free (pick up from street thrown out computer)
30Gig Hard drive: $15 (used one)
Geforce2 Video card: $15 (used one)
Windows XP: copied one uncle gave to me
Case: Free
US Robotic External 56K modem: $5 ( bought from 2nd hand store)
DVD rom: $20 at Fry

JAD · Sep 19, 2005

life expectancy.....1 year

Ruel Smith · Sep 19, 2005

Gilbert said:
If you had the extra $$$ then what monitor would you get, assuming a large
(19 inch) lcd . . . ?

I'd go for a 20", first of all. A 19" doesn't get you any larger screen
under native resolution, which is what you want to run at on an LCD. 19"
resolutions are 1280x1024 just like the 17", only everything is blown up. A
20", however, has a much higher resolution.

I like Samsung. I'd probably go for the Samsung 204T - 20.1" digital LCD
with a native resolution of 1600x1200 and a 16ms pixel response time. $499
at NewEgg right now.

Ruel Smith · Sep 19, 2005

Gilbert said:
With one big 250 gig HD, what would your backup strategy be? HD to DVD or
?

First of all, my backup strategy isn't a whole entire image. I backup
necessary files only. I feel that a fresh install of everything takes care
of minor annoyances that has crept into my system, so I go through the
hassle of freshly installing everything from scratch. However, I backup my
files to a separate HDD. It's fast, and painless that way.

Ruel Smith · Sep 19, 2005

life expectancy.....1 year

That computer is ready for the junkpile now. He couldn't possibly play any
recent games without resorting to everything turned off and minimal
resolution.

mmdir2005 · Sep 20, 2005

all i need is a a latest video card. my card plays GTA vice city,
Lord of the Rings, metal of honor allied
assault. Flight simulator 2004. Only game refused to play is Madden
2004 which requires higher
than Geforce2 MX serious.

My Experiences With HomeBuilt Computer

SamuelF566

dawg

jaster

Ruel Smith

djs0302

JAD

JAD

jaster

djs0302

Ruel Smith

digisol

Gilbert

jaster

Gilbert

mmdir2005

JAD

Ruel Smith

Ruel Smith

Ruel Smith

mmdir2005